


anything you say is wrong; anything you say is wrong

by mellifluous_static



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, not an au, not canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25826881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellifluous_static/pseuds/mellifluous_static
Summary: Leo Fitz finally has it all: the girl of his dreams and his best friend and everything else, Jemma Simmons; a house in Perthshire and an argument for a pet monkey he's close to winning. So why does he still wake up thinking thoughts that he purged himself of?Maybe some things just don't go away with time.With Jemma Simmons however... he may just stand a chance.
Relationships: Leo Fitz & Leo Fitz's Father, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	anything you say is wrong; anything you say is wrong

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote another fic that I intended to be my first, but times changed and this one struck me fully formed so I had to get it out. It might be terrible, it might be great; the sentences may be dangling and awful grammatically but who cares because I'm here to help Fitz out of trauma and if you're reading this, I guess you are too.  
> Comment, kudos etc  
> Just don't be rude/mean/the *absolute* worst  
> :)

Out of all the universes there ever were, he never thought they’d get a happy ending. But they did. They did and now they’re so ridiculously, sickeningly happy that when Daisy came to visit their cottage in Perthshire, she said she had to step out because the air inside was too nauseating with love (but her eyes were sparkling). Fitz couldn’t get enough of it, loving every single morning he woke up to Jemma cheerfully burning breakfast in the kitchen at an ungodly hour and him grumbling all the way there just to get a kiss on the stubble for his efforts and make a decent fry-up (how she lasted undercover in HYDRA unable to make a decent meal, she and Coulson would never tell him).

So it makes no sense really, that he would still wake up sweating and shivering and terrified out of his bloody mind in the middle of the night while he lives in the only paradise the universe has been generous enough to grant him. Jemma’s up instantaneously, the Framework and Maveth and far-flung future having set a precedent for dealing with nightmares: whisper sweet nothings in the ear as you cradle the head and stroke comforting circles in the clammy back, waiting till they’re ready to talk about it. So she follows the protocol, gazing at him expectantly.

He won’t meet her eyes though, she noticed. And he’s rubbing his bad hand.  
The pod, is that what it was this time? Or.. was it when she left to go undercover?  
He’s shivering. That’s new.

Unable to bear the tension, Jemma asks, “Fitz? Was it… the pod?”  
“No.”

He whispers it really, somehow choking on the monosyllabic word. That’s when Jemma decides she’s had enough of waiting, because she knew he had overcome it all: the hypoxia, the Framework, even the psychic split; nothing destroyed him. He was right next to her, he was solid and real and he was her Fitz; she would be damned if she let a nightmare break him.

“What was it then?”

“…”

“Fitz?”

“It… it was my…” Fitz took a lungful of breath, trying to steady himself. Jemma clasped his hand tightly, stopping it from shaking. “It was my father.”

Alistair Fitz. Jemma didn’t hate Holden Radcliffe or Grant Ward as much as she hated Alistair Fitz, because if he never hurt Fitz then maybe the others would never have either. He broke Fitz wide open but Fitz held on to himself tightly, slowly pulling himself together as he fell into friendship and love and what could only be called as true partnership with Jemma Simmons. Then Ward. Then Radcliffe. Splitting him open again, no matter how hard she tried to convince him otherwise.

Jemma still remembers how post-Framework Fitz refused to believe she loved him, how he recoiled from her every touch, how he got up from their bed and went to sleep on the cold hard floor once he thought she’d fallen asleep. As though he deserved to be punished. As though he didn’t deserve to become better, to feel whole again. She remembers their first week in Perthshire, breaking the cottage in, on leave after Coulson found out they were finally considering buying a house together; she remembers how carefree Fitz was away from SHIELD, how his slouch disappeared and his eyes sparkled with joy just at being in the countryside with her. It was easy then, as he ambled towards her bleary-eyed in the morning, curls resting atop his forehead, unaware of how terrible her morning breath was as he leaned close to kiss her like his life didn’t depend on it, like he believed there would be another day to kiss her and make her groan and explain to him that oral hygiene is mandatory and that gave her hope. We will be okay.

“What did he say?”

“The usual,” Fitz mumbled, looking at where his fingers were intertwined with hers, “A sloppy backhand and some nasty words.”

“Fitz. What did he say?”

He looked up at her, maintaining eye contact, “ We were having dinner together, the three of us. Mum was silent but calm and so was he, he wasn’t drunk or angry. I was telling them about the ham radio I was building and…”

“And what, Fitz?”

“It had been a good day Jemma.. then I corrected him when he said something wrong about tuning frequencies and then he knocked me down and said calmly, ‘anything you say is wrong’.”

His eyes were prickled with tears, and he let out a bitter, mocking sort-of laugh, “Anything you say is wrong.”

“Fitz I-”

“-That was his favourite thing to say to me, you know that? More than ‘you’re worthless’ or ‘my son is dumb and mute’ or anything else, ‘anything. you. say. is. wrong.’ ”  
He stopped on each word, like he was reliving each one as a blow to his body. Before she could get a word in edgewise, he continued, “The thing is, I know that he’s wrong. I can feel it, as clearly as I remember that memory. I know he was a pathetic excuse of a man, much less a father. I knew all this years ago.”

His voice hitched, the tears piling up and ready to come down in full force.

Jemma waited.

Then he spoke, softly, like a child in cotton slippers heading to the kitchen for a midnight snack hoping not to make a sound but wanting to make enough noise to keep the monsters in the dark away, “But why does it still hurt?”

He shuddered, one last time, violently, before he broke down sobbing and she pressed his face into the crook of her neck; his tears hot as they soaked her T-shirt but she just grabbed onto him for dear life, unwilling to let go.  
He knew everything she wanted to say. All she could do was be there for him.

Once he calmed down, once her legs were numb from sitting in that awkward position around him, she spoke, calmly, like it was the most important question in the world she’d pondered over and she finally had an answer for him.

“Fitz I, I don’t think it will ever stop.”  
He looked up at her with a wrecked expression on his face and God, all she wanted to do was hold him close and kiss every inch of his face as though her touch could drive his demons away. But she knew this was important, that they needed to say this now, before it became something bigger.  
“It won’t stop hurting… because it can’t. I know you know logically that there’s no reason to feel afraid, but you still do. Of all the terrors we’ve faced, that’s the one thing you were never able to fight back. You won’t always remember it but when you do, it will hurt. You just need to remember that-”

“-No… Jemma, you’re wrong.”

“No Fitz you just-”

“-No… not about the pain being a constant. I agree with you there, it will always hurt whenever I remember it. But knowing you’re there next to me, the life I made for myself, the life we’ve built together, it’s not a sign of me overcoming it, it’s a sign of me… coexisting with it.”

She looks at him and sees shining eyes.

“Remembering the good doesn’t cancel out the bad. I dunno if there will ever be a day that it won’t hurt, but I know that that day I have to make myself, nothing you can do or say will help. I… I hope I make it. I really do.”

She smiles at him with her sleeve covered with tears and snot, he smiles back with tears streaming down his face and blue eyes shining brightly, something broken and vulnerable in it but also strong and kind and loving.

“Because I deserve it.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is it. Hopefully you liked it. I know I enjoyed writing it, so I guess that's enough.


End file.
